Bring movies back to downtown St. Paul's Palace Theatre, group proposes

St. Paul is trying to figure out what it would take to restore the downtown Palace Theatre, built in 1916, to its former glory. (Pioneer Press file photo)

Despite its prominent marquee near Wabasha Street, the old Palace Theatre hasn't welcomed patrons in nearly a decade. St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman hopes to dust off the cobwebs, tear out the main floor seating and revive the shuttered vaudeville theater next year as a 3,000-person concert hall.

Gov. Mark Dayton and influential lawmakers have smiled upon the $12 million proposal, but not everyone is convinced that musical performances should be the primary use of such a sizable space. Some downtown residents, boosters and historic preservationists would like the 1916 theater -- once known as the Orpheum movie house -- to also show movies again.

Seven movie theaters once drew audiences downtown -- the Orpheum, the Paramount, the Strand, the Riviera, the World, the Tower and the Lyceum -- but those days are long past, and attempts to revive them have failed. Downtown St. Paul hasn't had a movie house since the Galtier Plaza theater closed in 1999.

Nevertheless, at the urging of art gallery owner Bill Hosko and fellow proponents, a downtown business and residents' group voted Wednesday to ask City Hall to give further thought to its plans for the theater on Seventh Place near Wabasha Street.

"The motion was in support of the city investigating movies as part of the renovation of the Palace Theatre project," said Capitol River Council director Paul Bengtson.

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"We're simply asking the city to consider this part of the renovation."

The proposal would require some investment in a digital projector and drop-down screen, items that together could cost well over $50,000, if not twice that. Hosko said the mayor could still eliminate the main floor seating and save about 500 seats on the mezzanine level, as planned.

Coleman's staff has studied the revival of century-old theaters in cities such as Chicago and Austin, Texas, and beer and movies tend to be part of the resuscitative formula, though not necessarily the main focus.

Ornate plaster work along the edge of the ceiling speaks of the Palace Theatre's glorious past. (Pioneer Press: Joe Rossi)

"The model around the country has been to do 'brew and views,'" said Joe Spencer, the mayor's director of arts and culture. "I can't absolutely promise that that's going to work out, but that's the hope, and it has been all along. Of course we'll try to do that."

The mayor's office has envisioned more than 100 music, theater and performance events per year at the revived Palace Theatre, which last hosted Brave New Workshop comedy shows in its lobby in 2005.

To attract musical acts, the city has been in talks with Jam Productions in Chicago, as well as the group that runs the storied First Avenue and Seventh Street Entry concert venues in Minneapolis, which host up to 1,500 and 250 standing patrons, respectively.

The Palace, which currently has about 1,800 seats, opened as a 3,000-seat vaudeville theater in 1916 and was converted into the Orpheum movie house in the 1920s. A remodel in the 1940s cut seating in half. The Orpheum stopped showing movies in the early 1980s.

The building is owned by the Kelly Brothers, a St. Paul-based investment firm, and partner Fritz Rabens told the media in 2007 he could envision the Palace someday becoming a night club. Those plans have been complicated by the extent of necessary repairs, including a leaking roof and other visible ravages of time.

Calls to Rabens and the Kelly Brothers for comments were not returned Friday. Spencer said the city will become the ultimate owner of the Palace.

"Obviously, it's not worth a whole lot," Spencer said. "It's been vacant for 30 years. The building owners have been great to work with. It's going to bring value to their overall property."

The two-building development, which includes the former St. Francis Hotel, spans apartments, Candyland, Bruegger's Bagels, the Wild Tymes Sports and Music Bar, and the Rivertown Market grocery. Spencer pointed out that as many as half of the building's residential tenants are McNally College of Music students, an appropriate fit for a music venue.

On March 11, about 30 St. Paul residents and theater fans attended a meeting of the Capitol River Council's Development Review Committee to hear Hosko pitch his plans.

He said the city would do well to bring films back to downtown St. Paul, especially the type that don't get much screen time in the suburbs.

"Once opened, it is hoped there will be 100 days that feature events," wrote Hosko, in a March 7 email to residents. "What about the other 265 days a year? ... I and others believe this could be a great opportunity to bring a movie theater back downtown, particularly one that features classic and independent art films."

To fund the $12 million renovation, the city has asked Dayton and state lawmakers for $6 million in state bond funding, which will be negotiated as part of a larger bonding bill. Another $1 million would come from gifts and philanthropic foundations. The city would put in $5 million, with the expectation that the money would be paid back from event revenue and a theater bar.

Don Driggs, former owner of the Suburban World theater on Hennepin Avenue in Uptown, believes the renovation of the Palace would be fantastic, but he cautioned that films are a tricky business.

Art house theaters have gained stronger footing in Minneapolis, home to the Riverview and Trylon microcinema theaters in South Minneapolis and the Uptown, Lagoon and Bryant Lake Bowl theaters in Uptown. St. Paul's Highland and Grandview theaters tend to show more traditional Hollywood fare.

"We tried to book movies at the Suburban World theater, and we could not," said Driggs, who found movie audiences choosy. "We couldn't compete -- the big movie chains had rights to the first-run movies, so we started showing second-run films. But we couldn't sell tickets for $8."

To get the price-point higher, he came up with a "dinner and a movie" concept, in which Suburban World offered dinner that resembled the cuisine on the screen. Italian films were presented with Italian food, and so on.

The six or so "dinner and a movie" events were well attended, but they weren't cheap. Ticket prices were $40.

Music would be a surer bet, he said. In the Twin Cities, "there's a lot of small places that do 600 seats, there's some bigger 1,500 seat places, but there's not a lot of places that fit 3,000," Driggs said. "We don't have a music venue that's 3,000."

Barry Kryshka, executive director of the Trylon microcinema, said that less is often more when it comes to space. He shows local documentaries and art house films in a venue with 50 seats.

The Palace would be "a really, really big place to show movies in," Kryshka said. "If you're doing films in an event-type way, you want your space to be 20 percent full or 40 percent full."

"If you have a film that might draw 200 or 300 people, and put them in a 3,000-seat space, it doesn't feel full," Kryshka continued. "You want them to feel like they've been at a successful event. That's what keeps people coming back --- people want to feel like they were part of something that succeeded."

Some movie fans have questioned why movie theaters have had such a tough time in downtown St. Paul and, recently, in downtown Minneapolis. The AMC theater chain pulled out of the Block E development on Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis last September.

The answer can probably be found online, on cable and in the parking ramps.

In addition to competition from "on demand" cable options and online film distributors such as Netflix and Hulu, moviegoers have become accustomed to suburban theaters that offer multiple movies simultaneously on a dozen screens, as well as free parking and seemingly easier traffic access than navigating downtown's busy one-way streets.

Adding to the suburban experience, theaters with oversized screens appropriate for special effects-laden Hollywood blockbusters are frequently attached to shopping malls and food courts.

Downtown St. Paul's shuttered Galtier Plaza theater is no longer part of a multi-level retail mall, and "parking in the evening is very tight in the area and more expensive," Hosko said.

Nevertheless, the pace of residential construction in downtown St. Paul has picked up since the Galtier Theater closed in 1999, and demand for affordable entertainment within walking distance continues to grow.

Doris Doom, a resident of the City Walk condominiums on Minnesota Street, recalls seeing a comedy show at the Palace a decade ago. "I'm 72 years old," Doom said. "I still drive, but we just think it would be good to have a theater downtown."

Many of the higher-end units in housing developments as the Penfield, the Lofts at Farmers Market and the Pioneer-Endicott are occupied by older couples and "empty nesters" who fondly recall buying popcorn in a classic downtown space, rather than trekking to the mall.

Compared to the old Galtier Plaza theater, "the Palace is much more visible and would offer an event-type of experience for patrons," Hosko said. "It would be a venue on par with any other indie theatre in the metro."